I dont know why this function isnt getting the proper criticism it deserves. Am I the only one who finds the auto shut off feature of the Mini, one of the worst ideas Tivo has ever come up with? For the life of me I cannot figure out ANY reasoning why Tivo included this useless feature.

I dont know why this function isnt getting the proper criticism it deserves. Am I the only one who finds the auto shut off feature of the Mini, one of the worst ideas Tivo has ever come up with? For the life of me I cannot figure out ANY reasoning why Tivo included this useless feature.

To me the reasons are VERY obvious: to avoid unnecessarily taking up network bandwidth and putting additional load on the host 4 tuner TiVo when nobody is watching the Mini. Also once dynamic tuning allocation is in place this also frees up the tuner for recording on the host unit once live TV auto turns off.
What I don't like is there is no option anywhere to change this behavior to make the timeout longer or even disable it for those that want to. I think that is the real mistake that TiVo made with this feature.

Personally, for me this is not a problem and this feature benefits me since:
a/ I don't watch live TV
b/ While I stream recorded shows I always use trick functions so timeout never happens

I dont know why this function isnt getting the proper criticism it deserves. Am I the only one who finds the auto shut off feature of the Mini, one of the worst ideas Tivo has ever come up with? For the life of me I cannot figure out ANY reasoning why Tivo included this useless feature.

I would hate for them to get rid of this. The thing they need to add is the ability to make it shorter.
One night in my bedroom I wanted to watch something. But the Mini from the other room was still connected since it had not been 90 minutes yet. So I had to get up to address the Mini in the other room. If the timer had been 30 minutes or even less in that instance I would have never needed to get out of bed to be able to view a channel on the Mini in my bedrom

I would hate for them to get rid of this. The thing they need to add is the ability to make it shorter.
One night in my bedroom I wanted to watch something. But the Mini from the other room was still connected since it had not been 90 minutes yet. So I had to get up to address the Mini in the other room. If the timer had been 30 minutes or even less in that instance I would have never needed to get out of bed to be able to view a channel on the Mini in my bedrom

I complained about this timeout when the Mini first came out, don't get rid of it just make it adjustable, from say 15 minutes to 10 hours, should handle all circumstances. (you can turn it off but 10 hours should handle the long timeout OK)

I have not (yet) purchased a Mini but have never heard about the sleep / timeout until reading this thread.

What exactly times out? Does it shut down the Mini? Does it keep the Mini going but release a tuner? Will it time out while watching a recorded show? Will it time out while using one of the applications, such as Streambaby or listening to Pandora? Ok, maybe not those because they don't work on the Mini, but what about watching Netflix? Oh wait, not that either. Xfinity on Demand, will that time out?

The timeout only applies to live TV. When you're watching live TV on the Mini it's actually borrowing a tuner from the host TiVo and streaming the video across your network. If it's doing this and you don't interact with the Mini for 90 minutes then it shuts down the stream. The Mini itself is still awake only the live TV stream stops.

As it is right now, where you have to permanently dedicate tuners to live TV streaming, the timeout doesn't make a ton of sense. Except for in rare cases when a user has more Minis then they have tuners dedicated to live TV streaming. However when they get dynamic tuner allocation working this timeout will be a lot more critical because it will release the tuner back to the host so it can actually use it for recording.

I get the whole dynamic tuner allocation thingy but for me its rare that I'm ever recording 3 shows at once. And as far as bandwith goes, I dont notice any difference on my other devices when the Mini is on. At the very least give me the ability to make the auto sleep feature longer (like 8 hours). There are still people out there who like to sleep with the TV on sometimes.

I get the whole dynamic tuner allocation thingy but for me its rare that I'm ever recording 3 shows at once. And as far as bandwith goes, I dont notice any difference on my other devices when the Mini is on. At the very least give me the ability to make the auto sleep feature longer (like 8 hours). There are still people out there who like to sleep with the TV on sometimes.

That's interesting and it goes to show just how different people's viewing habits are. If our XL4 ever drops to two shows being recorded, I wonder what's wrong. About 60% of the time it is recording 4 shows and maybe 30% of the time it is recording 3 shows. Rarely is it only recording 2 and almost never is it down to 1 or (egad!) 0.

That said, I never watch live TV nor do any of the other four people in my house. If it's important enough to watch, it's recorded.

We record a bunch of "just in case" shows with extremely low priority. My wife has put some 270 entries on the season pass list. We like suspense movies in HD, so we have a blanket rule to record any HD suspense movie and keep 25 of them. That way, on Friday night when we want to watch a movie, we just find one of the 25 that we feel like watching. There are several other rules like that, such as my son's love for Sports Center, which seems to be constantly recording but never conflicts with anything important. Any important sporting event is also recorded, even though it is watched (somewhat) live.

The point is that I really don't care about tuner allocation. If I just want to watch live TV (why would I want that?), then I don't need a Tivo.

Yeah, they should make it adjustable. I'd put it to like 30 minutes to free up tuner resources. It should give a pop-up for a few minutes to let you keep it though, although I guess hitting "Live TV" again from TiVo Central isn't that big of a deal if you just have it on.

So why do you think TiVo even put this sleep mode into the unit??? if not to cut down on network traffic.

To free up the tuner for another Mini?

I've run into the problem myself. I had set my alarm system and I had left the Mini in my main room on a channel. So since the tuner was not free for the Mini in my bedroom, I needed to disarm the alarm to get that remote to hit the TiVo button. Then I could go back to the bedroom to get access to that tuner. If I had my way I would have the option to give up the tuner in 15 to 30 minutes. Then I would be less likely to run into that situation.

Streaming an SD or HD channel does not use much bandwidth. I'll transfer content at speeds of hundreds of mb/s for days sometimes from other devices over my network and it causes zero issues with bandwidth for other devices I use on my network. A TiVo Mini streaming a low bandwidth HD channel, even on a 100Mb/s network, should not cause any issues.

I've run into the problem myself. I had set my alarm system and I had left the Mini in my main room on a channel. So since the tuner was not free for the Mini in my bedroom, I needed to disarm the alarm to get that remote to hit the TiVo button. Then I could go back to the bedroom to get access to that tuner. If I had my way I would have the option to give up the tuner in 15 to 30 minutes. Then I would be less likely to run into that situation.

Streaming an SD or HD channel does not use much bandwidth. I'll transfer content at speeds of hundreds of mb/s for days sometimes from other devices over my network and it causes zero issues with bandwidth for other devices I use on my network. A TiVo Mini streaming a low bandwidth HD channel, even on a 100Mb/s network, should not cause any issues.

I don't have two Minis but your saying that two Minis do not lock up two tuners on one TP-4, if the Mini is in the sleep mode you get to use all 4 tuners??, that not the way I understood the system, as I understood with two Minis and one TP-4 you now had a two tuner TP-4, if you wanted each Mini to be able to tune Live TV. But your saying if both Minis go to sleep I get back my two tuners ??? (With DTA you may be correct but we don't have DTA yet)

What he's saying is you can choose to allocate only 1 tuner from your TP-4 and both Minis can then use that same 1 tuner, but not at the same time. i.e. The Mini side of things is already dynamic. It's the TP-4 side that currently is static.

What he's saying is you can choose to allocate only 1 tuner from your TP-4 and both Minis can then use that same 1 tuner, but not at the same time. i.e. The Mini side of things is already dynamic. It's the TP-4 side that currently is static.

So your saying that if I have two Minis allocated to one tuner and I stop using Mini #1 for live TV, I have to wait 90 min. before I can use Mini #2 for live TV because Mini #1 has to go to sleep, just asking as I said I don't own two Minis and would like to know.

So your saying that if I have two Minis allocated to one tuner and I stop using Mini #1 for live TV, I have to wait 90 min. before I can use Mini #2 for live TV because Mini #1 has to go to sleep, just asking as I said I don't own two Minis and would like to know.

As long as only 1 Mini needs live TV at a time either one can grab the dedicated tuner from the P4 right away. i.e. If you just press TiVo button on Mini #1 such that it is no longer in live TV mode then Mini #2 can grab the tuner from the P4 right away for live TV - no need to wait 90 minutes. If someone then attempts to use live TV on Mini #1 while Mini #2 is in live TV mode they will be denied access.

As long as only 1 Mini needs live TV at a time either one can grab the dedicated tuner from the P4 right away. i.e. If you just press TiVo button on Mini #1 such that it is no longer in live TV mode then Mini #2 can grab the tuner from the P4 right away for live TV - no need to wait 90 minutes. If someone then attempts to use live TV on Mini #1 while Mini #2 is in live TV mode they will be denied access.

OK I understand; Than what was the purpose (you think) that TiVo put in the sleep mode in the Mini in first place, my thought was to reduce local network traffic when the Mini was not in use, maybe TiVo though some local networks could be bogged down by this extra traffic??

OK I understand; Than what was the purpose (you think) that TiVo put in the sleep mode in the Mini in first place, my thought was to reduce local network traffic when the Mini was not in use, maybe TiVo though some local networks could be bogged down by this extra traffic??

Unnecessary network traffic I think is definitely one reason. Also note that streaming from host TiVo adds extra burden on that TiVo and slows it down, so no sense in having that extra load if nobody is making use of it. P4 units are already slow enough without that extra burden. But it's also useful when you have more than 1 Mini in the house and forget to get out of live TV mode on 1 of them. Personally I do like having this feature, but would be nice if TiVo made it configurable so you could either adjust timeout time including option for no timeout depending on your preference.